The media cycle no one believes is a cycle
Every wave looks like a revolution from the inside, until you've lived through three of them.
Keynote, 45 to 60 minutes. For media and technology executives, strategy teams, and industry conferences.
I've built through three waves of media: streaming at Hulu, the fight for the living room, and creators becoming the platform at Packagd and Meta. Each one arrived with the same conviction that this time is different.
The companies that keep getting blindsided usually lived through the last cycle and never noticed its shape. This talk lays that shape out, and shows where today's AI wave sits on it.
What the room leaves with
- How media waves repeat, over a twenty-year arc
- Where the current cycle really sits
- What three waves say about the next one
How it runs
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Wave one: the streaming era
Hulu, 2008 to 2012. The platform-versus-content fight nobody thought would resolve, and how it did.
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Wave two: distribution moves again
PBS, my own agency and Vizio, 2012 to 2017. Watching the fight move to the living room.
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Wave three: the creator becomes the platform
Packagd and Meta, 2017 to 2023, when content and distribution collapsed into one person.
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The pattern underneath the panic
New media redistributes power. Whoever held the old power calls that a crisis.
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Where this wave sits
A way to place any company on the curve instead of reacting to the loudest headline.
Where it comes from
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Hulu, early product and growth, 2008 to 2012
Inside the first platform-versus-content fight of the streaming era.
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Packagd, acquired by Meta, 2017 to 2023
Built and sold a company just as distribution moved to creators.
Read more about Packagd, acquired by Meta, 2017 to 2023 →